Denatured Proteins
by Sarowson
Summary: Testing her own power against that of her predecessor, Saryn finds herself committing to a fight that hushed the Orokin Derelict.


The strike was empty, a clubbed hand tipped with wet claws passed through the form as if it were made of mushroom fins. Pink mist blossomed outwards and stained the arc of the slice. The tissue connecting claw to hand melted alongside the claws themselves.

Lephantis struck out with a scythe made of sinew and bone. The wide arc dug into the skin of Saryn's Caustacyst but stopped against the spine of the formidable weapon. Saryn twisted away from the weight of the strike and found footing in the ankle-deep poison pooling on the floor of the chamber. The three-headed monster followed her on a tripod base. Venom dripped from her hand and onto the agitated Caustacyst talons. The Grineer head offered no quarter. It launched toxin emitting canisters from a repurposed ribcage. Of the three canisters launched, two hit Saryn; one in the chest and the other in the shoulder. They rooted themselves stationary with thorned feet and pumped a toxin into the air through heart-like chambers.

Lephantis followed the source of the toxin and launched another volley but landed none. The air burned. Saryn felt the crumbling chitin fall away from the infected sites. Her defenses were compromised. She wardened off her outmost layer of skin and rushed to regenerate the sublayer into a hardened carapace. As the great shadow of Lephantis' scythe loomed overhead, Saryn burst backwards from her old form like a molting cicada. Flickering Orokin lights begat the sound of the blunt end of the scythe cracking the earth asunder. The false skin, now flattened, bathed the chamber in a thin layer of her pink lofting spores. Saryn carved upwards with the Caustacyst; spraying a liquid acid through the pink haze and directly into the face of the scythe wielding head. She could sense it weakening. The outcroppings of her spores on the enemy were no longer being wiped out by the enemy's amalgamated immune system. Each second of battle seemed to weaken the resistances of her enemy more and more.

She volleyed a second wave of acid against the scythe wielding head but missed. The tripod base rotated and brought a metallic head of spider mandibles and glowing eyes into the fray. It launched a series of organic pods from a cylindrical neck. Saryn rolled to the right. The poison puddles beaded on her new chitinous exterior and fell without issue. The Organic ordinance hit the ground and doubled in size at an alarming rate. A pack of fully formed infested chargers tore through the flexible pods and sprinted at her new position.

She back-stepped a lunging strike aimed at her ankle and brought down the Caustacyst on the Charger's metal face plate. The Charger died instantly - but the Caustacyst was stuck. The fangs of the weapon were lodged in the thick metal armor and would rather lift deceased monster's heavy corpse rather than part ways with it. She decided to abandon the scythe; it stood at an angle in the felled creature. She felt pain from her hand and found it being crushed in the jaws of the second Charger. Winding up a punch to free herself, her forearm was pinched in the teeth of the third. Lephantis roared. The Grineer head tilted backward and exposed it's repurposed ribcage in preparation to fire. It was prepared to sacrifice the Chargers in the friendly-fire rather than let her walk free. She flooded her trapped hand with venom and spores. The afflicted Charger's jaw slackened. As the canisters flew, she tore her hand free and jerked her pinched forearm upwards, bringing the assailing Charger along with it. The canisters embedded themselves in the twisted flesh and armor of the beast. She lifted the deadweight on her forearm and smashed the weakened Chargers against each other hard enough to feel the crunch of bone.

She steadied herself on the handle of the lodged Castacyst. Three dead chargers twitched postmortem in a pile as she locked eyes with the scythe wielder's acid-scorched face. It howled as it brought back the scythe for a horizontal strike.

The blade carved a true path through the Chargers of flesh and metal and through the Caustacyst itself. Saryn floated above the sweep held aloft by fading energy. The Chargers erupted from the relieved pressure of over-propagating spores. The spores rushed violently into the stifled air. As they blocked out the Orokin lights, floated on the surface of each poison puddle, and adhered to every inch of Lephantis' being, Saryn had won. She uncrossed her arms and let forth the command for each viral spore to mutate into acid. Nothing was left but a soup of denatured proteins.


End file.
